


Lovely, Dark and Deep

by jane_potter



Series: The Riotverse [5]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/F, F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 13:21:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_potter/pseuds/jane_potter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a better world, doctors do not need more healing than their patients. Orion women are never mutilated and sold into slavery. They do not grow into sharp, brittle, bitter people with more scars than smiles. This is not that world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

\--pidest thing I've ever heard of, that horrible male thinks he has an idea of what I think or how I-- Pox and drought! Can't even make this blasted piece of plastic work like it's supposed to! Where's the...

Inferior slattern-cheap junk. If these pink cave people weren't too proud to just buy decent People tech instead of their knock-off stupid--

Rot this stupid thing! Where's the poxy record button?

*

Chief Medical Ossi-- Officer's log. McCoy, Leonard McCoy. Stardate-- oh, sweet baby Jesus, who the fuck knows. I don't care what the goddamn stardate is. 'S August on Earth, 's what it is.

As may be obvious, I'm still on a goddamn spaceship-- Pike's goddamn spaceship, in point of fact. The Ori-- computer, delete last. The passeng-- shit. Computer, delete last. We dropped off the cargo to the next shippin' point on schedule an' managed not to take on any horrible new flesh-eatin' space diseases, not that I got any thanks for all those inoculations. Andorian clap, distendin' flu, bacterial necrosis-- and what is this, the Dark Ages? Exactly what kind of dang fool decided to let open wounds like that fester for so long is beyond me, but if they'd had even the most _basic _kind of antiseptic treatment it wouldn'ta been half as...

Christ. Took me three days to process the whole lot, an' I ran the batteries down on every tricorder on board just puttin' their shiny green skins back in one piece. More or less.

Oh, God. I need another drink.

Know what, I made that fuckin' report already. Computer, delete from 'inoculations'.

Finally got all my tricorders charged up again. Felt damn near naked without 'em, knowin' the kind of dang fool theatrics this crew gets up to-- an' where'd I be if some funny-blooded alien bastards decided to pick a fight with us when I had nothin' to my degree but a scalpel an' a couple bits of medifoil, huh? I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker!

Not a journalist, either. Waste of damn time, keepin' a log like this. Like I don't have better things to do! 'F Pike wanted somebody to blather on about hisself into a computer, he's got that chattering infant he calls a commander for that, don't he? First officer my ass, the kid's fifteen. Not a shred of sense in his dang iron cranium, the brat, or I wouldn'ta had to patch it back together so many--

Fuck. Not even on track. Got legimita-- legitimate medical business here. Reason I started this infernal thing up.

Dropped off the cargo, got my dang medbay back in order. Pike, givin' me yet further proof that he's crazy as a gingered horse, has decided to take on _another _new crewman. 'S Orion-- part, anyway, seein' as the mutations for hair that colour just ain't found natural in the Orion genome. Seems he's keepin' on that Fleet girl, too-- Uhura-- though least she seems to have the sense God gave a llama, unlike the rest of these idiots, and probably heaps more'n that, to be honest.

Don't like this Orion. Can't pronounce her name. Shy-- Shayksor or somethin' like that. I'd say Pike was on her pheromones if they girl had any left, but she don't. Made sure of that myself. But if you're _gonna _take on a new engineer, better Fleet than wherever the hell the Orion girl's from! Least Fleet gives 'em proper trainin' to run this bolt-bucket! And why a former slave? Could he _pick _a less psychologically stable person? Ain't there any other engineers left in this disease-ridden black vacuum?

I put 'er on medical probation, psych profile pendin'. Got her keepin' her own log. See 'f I can't gather somethin' from that. She weren't happy 'bout it, neither. Snatched the recorder and huffed off when she realised I weren't gonna budge. Don't figure she knows how to work it-- oughta be back any minute now.

I ain't gettin' paid enough for this.

Christ, where'd I put that bottle? Know I had it around here somewh--

Oh, for the love of-- computer, end the goddamn log!

*

The medical officer on this ship is an idiot. I hate him. I hate his stupid recorder. Why do I need to waste my time talking to some little black box?

I'm not doing his poxy log. He can spread his legs and choke on a cock.

*

Fuck Leonard H McCoy. Fuck Christopher Pike. Fuck them and their first women and their children and the pretty-faced boy Christopher Pike thinks I can't tell is sucking his cock-- he must be, of course he is. Why else is something that tiny and pretty first officer on this ship? Why else would that boy be giving orders to Nyota Uhura instead of thanking her for letting him touch her feet?

Christopher Pike ordered me to do Leonard H McCoy's log assignment. He said he agrees with Leonard H McCoy's medical judgment. If I weren't the only Person on this ship, I'd think Pike was drinking somebody's pheromones three times a day, because that's the kind of agreement I'd expect out of a glitter-puppet.

Leonard H McCoy does _not _have sound judgment, medical or otherwise. He reeks of that rotten grain alcohol all day long. Most of the time he's so drunk that I could walk up to him and snap his neck before he could ever fight back.

There, Leonard H McCoy. I have made your log entry for today. I hope it burns on the way down.

*

Reporting medic McCoy, thirteen-hundre-- ah, shit. Computer, delete last. Chief Medical Officer's log. Uh, McCoy, Leonard H. Stardate fuckall, s'all a jumble of numbers to me. Still August.

Keep forgetting to use the rank format Pike wants. Ain't workin' at Georgia State Medical anymore, Leonard.

Just got this week's logs back from the Orion girl, an' all I can say is--

Okay, an' honest to god, I'd use her name if I could pronounce it. Last time I tried, she and Miss Uhura both looked at me like I'd licked my fingers and put 'em in the sugar bowl. Ain't my fault 'f the girl's name sounds like a cat gettin' skinned, is it? Seems she don't see it that way, though. I'm a doctor, not a xenoculturalist, but even I know all this toothy smilin' at me sure as hell ain't a come on. Her enamel looks in good shape, though. Left upper carnassial's a bit crooked, but the primary and secondary canines on both sides look straight, nothin' seriously out of line. I mighta caught a glimpse of a minor fissure on the upper surface of the left lower molar, but seein' as Orions have loxodontic molars I could just be puttin' my thumb up my ass for all I know. Couldn't say without a closer examination. An' call me crazy, but somehow I don't see that girl lettin' me poke around in her mouth for anything short of cripplin' pain and Pike's orders.

Right. Those logs? All one-liners saying, "Here's today's entry," and if it ain't that, it's insults in Orion as'd give a Klingon a run f'r his money. Sounds like a starbase emergency room on a Friday night right after pay goes out. Frankly, I'm gettin' sick an' tired of the girl's passive-aggressive bullshit. It ain't tellin' me nothin' I didn't know, though.

Fuck, listen to me babble. Goin' stir crazy in this metal coffin. Thing about space? Huge and empty, nothing but darkness and silence with pockets of bloody screamin' death tucked here 'n' there. Could go right round the bend waitin' to get where you're goin', and still never make it there-- radiation poisonin' from an unexpected solar flare, meteor field travellin' nine thousand klicks a second-- ion storm fries the systems to hell and leaves us floatin' blind and powerless, nothin' to do but wait to die or get boarded by the next pirate cruiser huntin' for scrap metal and slaves, and once you've been put up as a breedin' ground for every sexually transmitted disease out there it's just a toss up as to whether you go by bleedin' out through your eyeballs or swellin' up 'til your skin bursts clean off or pukin' up bits of your intestines as they disintegrate inside your distended belly or--

_Dammit_, Jim! Don't sneak up on a man like that! The fuck you want?

You wha--? I'm a doctor, not a teenage girl, no I don't want to 'chat'. You think I ain't got better things to do than sit here an'--

That's a medical log, it's different. Yes it goddamn is. Well, Pike was the one who-- fuck this. Computer, end log.

*

Leonard H McCoy has informed me that I am to talk about something of substance in these poxy logs. Stupid, _horrible _pink pig-- I had to stand there taking orders from that _male _while Christopher Pike's little cabin whore sat over on the other side of the room watching it. Whore or not, that boy has power on this ship, and Leonard H McCoy made me-- made _me_\-- while he was-- Rot that male! I _hate _him! I hate-- I hate...

...Very well. I will talk about things of substance if I must. Today I am going to talk about James Tiberius Kirk.

I have a theory about this boy. The humans don't see it, but it's obvious to a Person. Nothing as small and pretty as that child gets to such a position of power without sex.

Can humans not _smell _the scent all over him? Are they completely nose-blind? I saw him slipping out of the captain's cabin several mornings ago, trying to move quietly. Sometimes James Tiberius Kirk even wears Christopher Pike's jacket on the bridge, out in front of everybody. I had always heard that humans don't fuck their young ones, but then I also heard that they don't fuck for power, either. Perhaps nobody is supposed to know? What a stupid joke. It's obvious.

James Tiberius Kirk is not just a whore, though. I will admire him for that. He is smarter than the rest of them, smarter in ways that even Nyota Uhura is not. Is that why you like him so much, Leonard H McCoy? Because you have yourself a clever cocksucker to make Christopher Pike your glitter-puppet?

You treat him well, Leonard H McCoy. You heal him when he is hurt on away missions and you always make sure not to leave scars on his soft pink skin. You even heal his littlest bruises. You let him steal your grain alcohol even when you say he isn't allowed to have it. You idiot male, it's obvious. How many hours do the two of you spend locked in your medical office, alone after shift?

I wonder, Leonard H McCoy-- does he get pleasure from making you fuck him the way he likes it, or does he fuck you? Do you get on your knees for him? Does he have to make you spread your legs, or do you do it willingly? I can picture it. Even I see you'd make a beautiful servant. I would have sex with you myself right now, but I will give James Tiberius Kirk the respect he deserves. I won't interfere with his whore. Perhaps I'll ask permission, though.

So simple. Once you've pleased James Tiberius Kirk, he pleases Christopher Pike, and then he asks the captain to favour you. _Mmm_\-- the boy doesn't have pheromones, but he has a beautiful ass, doesn't he, Leonard H McCoy? And once he's put his pretty ass to work, then he curls up beside Christopher Pike and whispers _please_ and_ I wonder_ and _maybe you should_, and bit by bit he puts you in a good light to the captain. Then you're allowed to spend all your time swilling that rotten grain sludge and Christopher Pike still says he trusts your _judgment_.

Clever child, James Tiberius Kirk. It's more than I ever gave a human credit for. He could almost be a Person if he wasn't quite so pink. A little bit of proper training...

Shall I talk some more, Leonard H McCoy?

*

Jesus fuckin' _Christ_! Fuckin' hate to say _I told you so_, except, wait-- I goddamn don't! I can't believe she-- how could anybody-- she-- that _goddamn bitch_!

I've never heard anythin' this sick in my life. That Orion bitch just gave me her latest logs for this week, an' I-- I can't even look at the discs. Sick, disgustin'-- Shit, if I needed any more proof that she's more unbalanced than a two-legged milkin' stool...

Oh, God. Oh my God. Need a drink. Can't-- I can't get those fuckin' images outta my head.

She does all her logs in Orion, an' my translator's not the best, but I-- I can't--

The girl's no better'n a slaver herself. Thinkin' that I'd-- or that Pike would ever-- even for a second-- that Jim--

Goddamn it! She's out there right now with Pike an' Jim an' Sulu an' Miss Uhura on the planet, gettin' our next cargo, and I can't even get a word out to Pike that the girl's a goddamn lunatic. I can't--

Fuck. Know I had another bottle around here. Know I put it somewhere... If Jim took my last goddamn bottle of decent-- Aw, Christ. She thinks-- She thinks Jim and I-- that he would-- Fuck, here. 'S right here.

I couldn't. I would never. I would never touch him. God, he's just a _kid_. An' she thinks we'd... Fuck the glass, I need those words outta my head right now.

I would never do that. I would never.

Not ever. Never, never, never... I wouldn't... I wouldn't _ever_...

*

Captain's log, Pike, Christopher. Stardate 2248.56. Twenty-one fifteen hours.

It seems I have some serious disciplinary issues to attend to. Today, on an away mission to a human colony just outside of Union space, I was in negotiation with a local minister to buy eight of his slaves from him. Buybacks are never the best way to free slaves; it's too costly and it only increases the demand that fuels the market for selling them. Sometimes it's the only way, though. We were on short notice and I couldn't draw attention to us here, but I couldn't leave those people there, either.

Engineer Shaixor apparently does not understand the concept of a low key operation. She was supposed to be present only to convince the minister that I couldn't possibly be a Starfleet operative because I owned an Orion slave myself. Halfway through the deal, Shaixor apparently decided the fastest and most discreet way to deal with the issue was to lunge across the table at the minister and rip his throat out with her bare teeth. By the time I dragged her off, his windpipe had been ripped wide open and his lungs were half full of blood already.

As we were running the slaves out of the building to the beam up point, he local militia started firing on us from behind. I gave an order for the others to continue while I covered them. Mr Sulu directly disobeyed the order and remained with me, killing two. I shot and killed three others. Sulu, myself and Lieutenant Uhura all received phaser burns. Two of the slaves were shot, one killed.

Once we were beamed back aboard, I then found that my only medic, Doctor McCoy, was conducting medical procedures while heavily intoxicated. Not only that, but first officer Kirk had removed the _Number One_ from her geosynchronous orbit when he learned that we were being fired upon on the surface, and had been preparing her for a surface run to pick us up directly. I understand the words, "Burn that backwater shithole down," were uttered at one point.

Engineer Shaixor had been restricted to cabin arrest at all hours for the foreseeable future, save for one daily shift of maintenance duty. Mr Sulu has likewise been restricted to his cabin and transferred to gamma shift on the bridge for the next three weeks. Doctor McCoy's pay has been docked, but he has been informed that I'm going to break his arm the next time I ever catch him drinking or drunk on duty. Commander Kirk is in the brig, pending whether the fuck I ever feel like letting him out again.

*

I'm not doing this log because I want to. I still hate this stupid thing. I don't want to talk to you, Leonard H McCoy. I know you're listening and I don't want to talk to you. But I'm confined to my cabin and I'm bored. I don't even get to talk to Nyota Uhura when she brings my meals. All she said the first day was, "I'm not allowed to talk to you, Shaixor. Captain's orders. I'm sorry."

She did look sorry. It isn't her fault Christopher Pike gave those orders, either. It was good to hear somebody talking to me like a Person, if only for a few words. Nobody except Nyota Uhura speaks to me if they can help it, and I don't understand the pig language. I won't learn it, either. Nyota Uhura translates for me what I need to know. It makes her useful to me, which I can tell she likes. It gives her a purpose. As long as I don't remove that purpose, she will stay near me and speak with me.

Bored. Bored, bored... I want to fuck somebody.

Nyota Uhura. Daughter Nyota Uhura of Terra. I like that. It's such a lovely name. I'd fuck her. I'd peel off her phaser holsters and her harness and her leathers and her polyesters right down to that skin like rich brown orchard earth and I'd plow her until her tits trembled against my mouth. She'd be beautiful like that, all wet and squirmy and...

Rot this cabin arrest! Sitting here behind a locked door with nobody and Nyota Uhura can't so much as _speak _to me. I could greet her with my legs spread and ready the next time she came to deliver food and she probably wouldn't let herself set foot past the threshold.

I see now why this is a punishment, though. Boredom. Anticipation. Fear. Make them sit and stew in the worry. Let them terrify themselves with wondering what's to come and your job's already half done. Strange, that Christopher Pike should work so much like People slavers.

I wonder when Christopher Pike is going to show up. I'd rather it was sooner than later. At least then I can get it over with. And I don't think-- no. I haven't seen a pain-stick on this ship yet, but he'll have one. How else would he control a crew this size? Still, it doesn't matter. I can take anything a cave person male can do to me, and at least then I'll get fucked.

Haven't been fucked in so long. Even a punishment would feel good right now. See, that's where Christopher Pike has gone wrong. He's human, of course. Male. He doesn't understand how People women work. He can't break me.

Mm. May as well get ready for him. Don't suppose he'll wait for me to get wet, do you, Leonard H McCoy? Has he visited you already, you sweet-faced cunt? Did it hurt much?

*

This is starting to piss me off. Where is Christopher Pike now? He can't be _that _busy fucking his boy whore. Nyota Uhura's been here with food and it's almost time for my next shift. I don't want to go on shift feeling like...

Oh. Oh, that blasted _gouge_. Pox and drought and scum on his dick. Making me go to work like this, all dripping and empty and aching-- _pox_!

He's clever. He's cleverer than I thought, I'll give the pig captain that.

Still. The other engineers. I don't even know their names, but they'll do. I'll _make _them fuck me if I have to-- and I won't. They'll _crawl _for me and Christopher Pike never needs to know it.

*

Captain's log, Pike, Christopher. Stardate 2248.58. Twenty-three forty-four hours.

Apparently Engineer Shaixor doesn't take well to enforced isolation. There was something of an incident with Engineer Rittle in the cargo bay today. Rittle's been transferred to beta shift so that his shifts no longer coincide with Shaixor's, and Shaixor's cabin arrest just got lengthened by another two weeks. On top of her already indefinite sentence, that is. At the very least she will learn to interact civilly with human crewmates, according to human social norms, or I will not have her on this ship. I'm well aware of the human-centric chauvinism in that mindset, but I need to know that she can adapt like that. I won't have an incident like her lack of discipline at the colony repeated.

Doctor McCoy kindly took the opportunity to share some of his concerns regarding Shaixor's mental health with me, by which I mean he followed me down the hall to the bridge and then stood there and heckled me in front of my senior officers. It appears that, on top of being a functional alcoholic with anger management issues and no sense of respect for authority whatsoever, the man has a few unfortunate xenophobic tendencies. I hope these turn out to be a result of the alcohol and aviophobic nerves, because the man's brilliant. I might never find a medical genius like him again. Give me six months and I could make something of this wreck-- either that or Jim will. Just as long as he's not really the xenophobe he came off as today.

*

Chief Medical Officer's log, McCoy, Leonard H. September second. Shut up, you. Note to self: find a way to turn off the damn computer's auto-prompt function for the stardate. And time, too, come to think of it. Maybe I could talk Jim into it, 'cause God knows he owes me enough favours f'r all the booze he's stolen. Medicinal alcohol, my ass.

Shit. Computer, delete from--

...Computer, cancel last command.

This is sick. This is-- it's just sick, 's what it is. The Orion girl's logs got me so twitchy that I won't even mention Jim's name in my _own _goddamn logs now. I... come to think of it, I ain't talked to him in the mess f'r near on two weeks, now. Shit. No wonder he's been lookin' at me like I kicked his puppy. Kitten, parakeet, baby platypus, whatever. Kid don't like dogs.

Aw, Jesus, Leonard. Since when d'you care about what some psychotic fang-toothed green girl thinks of you? Or what the hell Jim Kirk thinks of puppies, f'r that matter. God.

Now, speakin' of goddamn medical business. In a medical log, who'da thought of that? The Orion girl's latest logs've been... Christ. Apparently I've now graduated from bein' the recipient of unmitigated hatred to the recipient of some sex-deprived lunatic's sexual fantasies. Know what's worse? Know what's fuckin' worse than listenin' to somebody talk about lickin' semen off Pike's stomach _deliberately _and _knowingly _to infuriate me? Bein' professionally bound to listen to every. Goddamn. Word. Because it's part of a patient's psychological evaluation. And I am the only fuckin' person on this can of nutcases who believes she's psychotic.

Case in point-- Miss Uhura. She's got trust issues and possibly depressive tendencies, but she's the only person on board that's had her PTSD treated at _least _a little. Sign of disaster, how much that says about this crew. S'more'n I can goddamn say for people like Jim fuckin' Kirk.

I ain't pushin' on that, though. Kid's a first officer at fifteen and yet he crawls into bed with his daddy at night. I can't... I'm not goddamn stupid. I ain't got a clue what he went through those months he went missin', 'cept that he turned up in prison on a terraformed moon in the bad part of pirate space, and that's... it says more'n what I got a right to ask about. Pike's probably handlin' that better'n I ever could.

Back on track, Leonard. Man'd think you liked listenin' to yourself yammer with the way you go on durin' these things. Shouldn'ta had that fifth glass, maybe.

So, Miss Uhura. Island of common sense and stability on this ship, even though that don't say much. Steady hand with a phaser and cool enough in a crisis that you could practically use her to bring down a fever. I've half a mind to see she gets some medical trainin', 'cause she'd make a hell of a trauma nurse. And _she _thinks there's nothin' wrong with the Orion. Matter of fact, 's what she came in to talk to me about earlier today.

Said she'd learned some disturbin' things about our green engineer that probably would help me be, and I quote, "a little more understanding of Shaykzor's perspective". Know I butchered the name there. Apparently Uhura had a little talk with the girl yesterday, quite against Pike's orders thank you very much, and found herself havin' to reassure the girl that nobody on this ship carries spark batons, and that Pike was definitely not going to rape her as punishment for that colony fiasco. I had figured from the logs that the girl assumed as much about how punishments work on human ships, but seems Miss Uhura beat me to correctin' that assumption. The Orion girl was, quote again, 'confused' by this. Uhura says it took her near an hour to explain it all so's the girl believed her.

Like I said, she's of the opinion that the Orion's not utterly insane. Very concerned, she was, that I somehow mistook a little bit of cultural misunderstanding for _complete homicidal lunacy_. Evidently, that now trumps a master's, three PhDs-- including psychology-- and ten years of medical experience. How _silly _of me to forget that! Never mind nurse's training, I oughta just hand my license over to her right now!

*

CMO's log, continued. Fuck, uh-- twenty minutes later, I don't know.

Jim goddamn Kirk would very kindly like me to add that it ain't a degree in xenopsychology. Obviously this invalidates all of my medical trainin' ever.

Shut up, Jim! No you goddamn do _not_\-- don't even try it with me right now, kid. Get the fuck outta my liquor. Get--

Jim Kirk is also a fuckin' infant whose mama never taught him that it ain't polite to eavesdrop at doors on_ confidential medical files_. Guess she was too busy teachin' him how to shoot a phaser at goddamn _five_. I can see how it would be easy to get those two priorities mixed up.

Yeah, Jim? And what're you gonna do about it? I ain't some spacer you can taunt into a bar brawl, you know. You can't just _fix _me with a phaser and a--

_Wh_\--

_Never _fuckin' bring my wife into this again, you little bastard. Get out. No. Don't even-- get the fuck out. Just go. Just--

Oh yeah? You don't see me bringin' your daddy into it, do you? Do I ever--

**Content deleted. Recording edited at 16.08 on 2248.69**.

*

Captain's log, Pike, Christopher. Stardate 2248.70. Twenty-two hundred hours.

This morning Doctor McCoy advised me that it would be medically advisable if I permitted Engineer Shaixor to socialise with Lieutenant Uhura. I have taken his advice into consideration and also removed Shaixor from full cabin arrest, though she will continue to have limited social freedom and restricted communication with the rest of the crew.

I also broke Doctor McCoy's right arm, as he was both on duty and drunk when he gave me this advice. He informed me that it was a clean fracture of both the ulna and the radius and thanked me-- for doing it neatly, I assume-- before stumbling into the head, vomiting, and returning to Sickbay to treat himself.

After he departed, Jim finally showed up for his shift an hour and a half late, hungover. If I'd known about his brand new black eye earlier, I would have done a lot more than just break McCoy's arm.

*

I don't understand. Nyota Uhura says that there are no servants on this ship, let alone slaves, and nobody works in exchange for fucking or fucks for power or gets beaten, and nobody fucks somebody who doesn't want to be fucked, or who is agreeing to be fucked only because the other person is more powerful than they, or who can't-- Nyota Uhura said the word was... _kinssent_? She couldn't translate it. I don't think I know a word that means like what she said. Nobody fucks somebody who isn't able to think clearly because they're drunk or hurt or high, because they can't... give _kinssent_.

Is she lying to me? I've known humans all my life, and they never acted by those rules. I've never given _kinssent _to anybody. Nobody ever gave _kinssent _to me.

I told Nyota Uhura that. She...

Then she cried.

I know that's what it's called, I've seen humans do it before. Their faces get all leaky and it means they're in pain. But I didn't hit her! I _didn't_, Leonard H McCoy-- I know I'm not allowed to. I didn't even touch Nyota Uhura until after she started leaking, and then I tried to make her stop by getting rid of all the water from her face, and I-- did that hurt her? I just put my fingers on her cheeks and she wasn't even bruised, but then she tried to pull her face away and-- and I just-- But then she came back and went all soft and floppy against me so I had to hold her up in my arms, and she made squishy noises against my shoulder for a long time. I-- I touched her hair. It feels like People hair. I...

I suppose I did it blasted wrong. When Nyota Uhura stopped leaking, she went all stiff like I was going to hit her and then pulled away and wouldn't look at me while she wiped her face clean. I didn't want her to leave because then I'd get so poxy _bored _again, and-- it just... I never let any of my sisters go away to lick her own cuts after a beating, either. Where else on this ship could Nyota Uhura find a woman to help? Her slattern-stupid cabin mate? The pig doesn't even speak to Nyota Uhura half the time when they're both in a good mood. She wouldn't know how to make Nyota Uhura laugh if it was that or a flogging.

I don't understand what Nyota Uhura was crying over in the first place, because I didn't see anywhere she could be hurt, but... _humans_. I thought maybe she would like an orgasm to make her feel better, so I asked. But then-- I put a hand on her hip and started pulling up her shirt but there wasn't even a _bruise _there! And she made a choking noise and started poxy _leaking _again and then she left! I only-- I didn't say she had to even reciprocate, or-- I just--

It's her own rotted fault. How was I supposed to know what to do? What do I know about cavepeople? She didn't tell me what I was doing wrong. I would have fixed it. I would have done better! Maybe she... maybe Nyota Uhura doesn't want my teeth near her lushness. I know humans don't like People teeth. I've never had mine cut, though-- and I never will. I would have used my fingers, though! If she'd asked, if she'd--

_Humans_. Pox and drought on these stupid... _humans_!

I don't _understand_. I was the best woman in my House-- so good that I made my House into the First House of Syndicate infiltration. The government paid me favours. I was given all the best Earth-side assignments and no human ever said no to me. I _never _made any of them cry-- they just begged. They begged _me_, Leonard H McCoy. I was powerful, I was strong-- I was a _tower-breaker_. No male ever denied me, ever _dared _lay a hand on me unless I invited it, and when I invited it then I had a dozen males on their _knees _for the chance to fuck me. Human, People, it didn't matter.

Do you know how close you edge to death as you command me around and give me orders, Leonard H McCoy? I had glitter-puppets in _Starfleet_. Starfleet! I could have had you kidnapped and fucked and mauled and killed in the night with just _one _order. I could break your neck _now _with my own bare hands! I would have been made House Mother when Silwaa died! I would have--

_Pox_. Where-- _where _is the blasted delete button? _Where is--_

Where is that button?

...Oh stars. Gods all above. No. No no no no _no_. No. There has to be-- there must be-- somewhere--

Oh no. _No_.

*

Chief Meci-- Medical Ossifer's log, McCoy. McCoy, Leonard.

Wha...? The fuck ya talkin' 'bout, ya shitty piece'a... Oh. Date. S'tember. _September_, I said! Computer, shutta fuck up. _Up_.

G'lord. _Huh-hem_. Doctor McCoy, reportin', f'r the record, that I am indis-- indisposed. F'r m'shift. Can't work. 'S broken. M'arm, I mean. I mean no. Was broken, but it ain't any more. Fixed that. Come down with-- w-with lifluella trishopan. Trisopan. Scales, itchin'-- ain't pretty. Put m'self into quarantine. Indisposed f'r work. Can't spread it. Haveta call in sick. Hah-- goddamn doctor, an' m'sick. Ain't got a cure f'r this one, nope, sorry. M'bad, captain. F'r the record.

Just sit it out in quarantine. Health protocols in place, no visitors. Treat m'own damn self. Ssss-- CMO's override in place. Everythin' locked down. 'Gitimate medical 'mergency, y'see. Gotta do this properly. 'M a doctor, not a... currier. _Carrier_.

Oh God. C'puter. Turnidoff. Stop. Stop th' goddamn log.

*

You didn't tell them, Leonard H McCoy. You didn't tell them what I said in my last rotted log.

I wasn't going to hand it in. I tried to smash the recorder but the stupid plastic casing wouldn't _break_, and when I tried to cut it open with a laser-cutter I took from engineering, there was so much smoke and smell that I had to stop or even some nose-blind human would notice. You didn't say anything about the damage when I handed the log in. And then you didn't say anything about what I recorded, either.

I know you didn't. If you had, I would have been thrown off the ship by now. Christopher Pike and Nyota Uhura both used to be Starfleet, and they wouldn't have a trained Syndicate infiltrator on their ship. And I asked James Tiberius Kirk about _kinssent _because Nyota Uhura still isn't even _looking _at me, and he said the word for fucking without _kinssent _is called _repe_.

I did that. I did it a lot, to a lot of humans. I fed them my pheromones so they were glitter-drunk and begging and couldn't give _kinssent_, and that means I did _repe _on them. It's _repe _even if they liked it, James Tiberius Kirk said. And then he told me Christopher Pike doesn't allow that on this ship. _Stupid _boy-- he thought he was _comforting _me when he said anybody who tried to do _repe _on this ship would be thrown out the airlock, said he'd seen Christopher Pike actually do it.

I did that. You know I did that, Leonard H McCoy. But you didn't tell anybody.

Christopher Pike called me onto the bridge today. I thought then that he'd found out, so I--

I don't know why I should tell you this. I shouldn't. But--

If you'd wanted to get me killed, you could have done it already.

I thought the captain was going to put me out the airlock, so I slipped a laser-cutter into my sleeve before I went up to the bridge. I was going to use it on him. Have you ever seen what a laser-cutter does to flesh, Leonard H McCoy? Have you ever tried to heal that kind of wound? It doesn't work. There wouldn't be anything left to heal if I'd used it. That's how I escaped from the slave ship, you know.

No, you don't. I never told anybody, not even Nyota Uhura. But this is what I can do with just a couple tools. When I was on that pox-rotted slave ship, I managed to steal a laser-cutter and a screwdriver. I used the screwdriver to pry open the horrible node on my neck and then rip out all the circuitry. I had to jam it right into the socket in order to wedge out the agoniser electrode, and I thought I'd die. But I didn't. Then I used the laser-cutter to get the chains off. There's still scars on my wrists from it, all hideous and purple and ugly. Being a slave with marks like that, I'd never work above a Third House again. But I made them pay for it, every one of the scum-sucking slaver blisters that made me wreck myself like that.

Laser-cutters don't cut people. They kill them. You put it near skin and the skin burns, the hair burns off. You touch the skin and it swells up, bursts, peels right off the bones. Put it through an eye-- that's how I usually did it-- and the head explodes. Less than a second, in and out. The eyeball pops first, running down the face almost like when a human leaks, and then steam sprays out the socket and the other eyeball bulges and pops out even though they're dead already. Blood sprays out the ear canals. Then the skull bursts open like an egg as the brain cooks, puffed up all soft and sticky through cracks in the bone. Nyota Uhura made me popcorn once. It's like that. Just like that.

I would have done that to Christopher Pike, Leonard H McCoy. Do you know that? I would have done that to your precious little whore-pet James Tiberius Kirk. And the pilot. Everybody on that bridge, everybody you know on this ship-- I would have done that if I'd been given half a chance. Because I would rather kill them all than _let _them throw me out a blasted airlock and die. Because _nobody _does that to me.

Except I didn't. Obviously. Christopher Pike just wanted to tell me in person that we were setting course for Betazed. I asked why. He said it's so I can get a legal citizenship and then the whoreson Vulcan cunts wouldn't be able to ever send me back to Earth.

So... so I'd be free. Like before they took out my--

Like before I was a slave.

Because you... you didn't tell him what I said. Because--

Pox. Pox and drought. I don't-- I don't _understand _this.

_Why_, Leonard H McCoy? Why _not_? You're not my sister. You're not a woman. You're not even People. Why would you do that for me?

*

CMO's log, McCoy, Leonard H.

Fucked up today. Really, really fucked up. Oughta take my goddamn medical license-- take it, take the damn thing and shred it and spit on it f'r good measure. 'S a joke t'all the fuckin' doctors out there who've ever given more'n two shits f'r the patients they're s'pposed to-- s'pposed to take ca-- Ohhh, Jesus fuck, 'm gonna-- _hurkhh_\--

*

Pox. _Pox _and drought and-- and _shit_\--

I am s-sore and-- and tired and I feel all horrible and empty because I haven't fucked anybody in _weeks_, and today I ripped my hand open on a broken grate and the sloppy-fucked medical officer was so drunk when he fixed it that now my palm has a great hideous purple scar across it and I _hate _that man, I hate him, I hate this ship, I h-h-_huh _uh huhhn, _uh huh huh huhhn_...

*

Chief Medical Asshole's log, continued. Fuckin' later, that's when, ya damn machine! Don't prompt me f'r a time! F'it ain't already perfectly clear, I ain't gonna be around this ship long enough f'r anybody to give a damn 'bout my records 'less they're puttin' me on trial f'r malpractice, and 'f that's the case then a record of me pukin' my guts out on shift f'r the second time today oughta be just what they want. Go ahead, lock me up, just 's long as it ain't in the black. Give anythin' f'r a decent atmospheric layer 'tween me'n death by solar flare.

Hungover an' sick as a dog. Feels like a bad case of Klingon gonorrhea in my intestines. 'S what three detox hypos in five minutes'll do to a man. Medically advisable, no, but Pike didn't give a shit when he jammed me with 'em an' I obviously wasn't in any shape to do my fuckin' job, what with being collapsed on the deck like a goddamn paraplegic.

Ain't never seen Pike that furious. Didn't know he had it in him. Course, I ain't never seen another of his doctors perform surgery blind drunk before, either. Thought he was actually gonna shoot me in the head f'r a bit there. Mighta done it, too, 'f Jim hadn't jumped in his way. Which is fuckin' pathetic, Leonard-- layin' on the deck in a puddle of your own puke nearly comatose with 80 degaknols 'f Metastecil in your blood that you couldn't even administer to your fuckin' self with two hands and a map while a fifteen year old kid who _hates _you talks your captain out of killin' you on account of bein' a waste of fuckin' _atoms_.

Was Jim what dragged me back into my office 'n' cleaned me up. Convinced Pike to let me outta the humiliation of detoxin' the booze all over the floor. _Jim_. Kid's more fucked up'n me and here he's... and I can't even... Oh, God. I'm Jim Kirk's _pity _case.

Pike tore a strip outta my hide once I was sober enough to stop seeing double. Ain't never been called worthless so many times in my life. Deserved it. Deserved all of it. Disfigured a girl today 'cause I was too drunk to legally be in _public_, and instead I had goddamn surgical tools in my hands.

Took 'n oath, once. Meant to help people. Meant to fix 'em. Shoulda figured out years ago what a goddamn joke that was, huh? Sh-shoulda quit 'fore I-- quit when I k-killed my own daddy, 'n' maybe... But _no_, Leonard, had to keep on p-p-pretendin' you had half an ounce of real t-talent, right up 'til you went 'n' cut open y'r own _w-wife_ and-- and she-- and _Jo_\-- baby-- my baby--

My baby--

M-my _baby_\--

*

Leonard H McCoy, this is the last log I am ever doing. I will spread my legs and beg for a pain-stick up my cunt before I record another word for you.


	2. Chapter 2

Captain's log, Pike, Christopher. Stardate 2248.81. Eighteen-hundred twenty-four hours.

Bravo, Chris. Well done. Nearly half your entire crew was having a personal meltdown and all you thought was, _Well, it sure is quiet these days_.

As far as I can tell, this is what happened. Lieutenant Uhura and Engineer Shaixor had some kind of falling out. Shaixor riled McCoy up with whatever she was saying in her logs. McCoy lashed out at Jim, who snapped back and eventually ended up with a black eye. Between whatever Shaixor and Jim said to him, McCoy decided the appropriate course of action was drinking himself to death, and went as far as dosing himself with a vaccine to get the symptoms so that he could lock himself in quarantine and keep on drinking. Meanwhile, Uhura had no idea what was going on with any of them. I need to have a word with Engineer Broswell as to how she could possibly think everything was okay when her cabinmate just stopped _talking_ for two full weeks.

And I didn't notice a goddamn thing.

Currently, McCoy's locked in detox, Jim's locked himself in the crow's nest, and Shaixor's locked herself in her cabin. Last I saw, Uhura was looking very involved in translating some old Vulcan text in the lounge, which might actually be the only sane form of coping that anybody on this ship has. Including mine, seeing as it basically involves locking myself in _my_ cabin and talking to myself, so that I can rewind the tapes later and inflict this on myself all over again, only without having to actually talk. Hell, I'd be drinking right now if the sight of McCoy hadn't put me off alcohol for life.

We're scheduled to arrive at Betazed in two months. Unless there's some kind of miracle between now and then, I'm kicking somebody off there. Don't know who just yet, but _ someone's_ going, because things sure as hell can't continue like this.

*

Jim Kirk just came to my door. Apparently he is allowed to speak to me now. He brought all my old logs from that horrible _male_ and told me Leonard H McCoy wasn't doing his stupid psychological evaluation of me any more, so the records all belong to me now. He said they're mine and I can do whatever I want with them. I don't have to keep talking to this stupid black box.

...When did Jim Kirk learn to make People speech?

But I didn't notice that then. I didn't know what to do. I don't even know how to make this knock-off piece of junk replay the discs! I just told him to put the logs on my desk. He wasn't so pretty then-- he looked horrible, all pale like mould on old fruit. The marks under his eyes were almost as purple as blood. That's what happens to humans when they don't sleep.

I thought Christopher Pike must not have wanted to fuck Jim Kirk when he was looking so sick. If my whore looked like that, I wouldn't. But I don't-- I don't have even a servant and Leonard H McCoy was sick with that rotten grain and so I thought Jim Kirk must be lonely too, just then. I leaned over and touched my fingers to his face and asked if he wanted to fuck me.

He's a human. He's a young male _cave person_. I _know_ he's having sex already! I could _ smell_ it right away, the way his body jumped for me, and I saw his face go pink and his breath get all harsh. I made him feel that, _ I_ did. He should have said _yes_ just because I have a wet hole, let alone that I'm-- I'm _me_. He should have _begged_ for--

But. But he--

He didn't.

I don't understand. I made him want me, I saw it, and then he said no.

So I'm sitting here, talking to this poxy black box because I don't know if I'm allowed to leave my cabin. Christopher Pike is already angry with Leonard H McCoy. I don't want to risk it, not with the way I saw him roar today.

This is _stupid_. I'm pathetic. I never knew a Person woman who lived on a ship full of pig males and still couldn't make a single one of them fuck her. Even without pheromones, I should be able to do that. _Any_ woman should be able to do that! I've asked, I've ordered, I've begged, but I--

I can't make them do it.

I used to be the best infiltrator in the Syndicate. I used to control _Starfleet_ officers. And now I'm-- I'm so covered in s-scars that I can't even m-make a pretty little cast off human _whore_ fuck me. I couldn't get that engineer male to fuck me when I went down on my knees-- my _knees_\-- and started to suck his cock. He-- oh stars. How hideous have I gotten, than he pushed me _off_? Fifth House _trash_ can do that, and I can't.

And the worst-- worst of all this poxy _scum_ is that... these logs are the most important thing I have left. There are secrets on here that could get me killed. But they're mine now. Leonard H McCoy isn't allowed to have them any more. Maybe Christopher Pike is even going to kill him. But these logs could kill _me_.

I... I never had something that was mine before. Not ever. Even when I was an infiltrator. People don't... we don't have things that belong to just one Person. Anybody can steal anything. These logs? I can... Jim Kirk said I can lock them up. He said I can even defend them. But--

Gods all above. S-some Person I am. Too hideous to fuck, hiding in a room with a bunch of discs that I can't break, that I was stupid enough to put secrets on.

*

Personal log, McCoy, Leonard H.

Third day of detox. Feel like somebody ripped out m'insides with a rusty spoon. Ain't been able to keep down anything solid yet. Put m'self on nutrients via injection two days ago. Jim fuckin' Kirk's still sittin' beside my goddamn bed like Mother fuckin' Theresa. Fucker.

Fucker. Fuck _off_.

...Jesus, Kirk, I mean it. Jus'... just...

The fuck're you even _here_? 'M not your _pity_ case, Kirk. 'M not... don't fuckin' _deserve_ somebody to...

Fuck this. Give up. Computer, end log.

*

Sometimes I'm amazed at just how much like life on a slave ship this is. Nyota Uhura came in earlier and bandaged my hand up even though the wound's closed. She gave me some salve for the scar that she said she stole from sickbay. It won't work, but I took it anyway and I even said thank you. I need sunlight to get my skin producing chloroplasts in the scar tissue again, and there's no sunlight in space. I hate this ship.

But it was nice, what Nyota Uhura did. She was kneeling in front of me and I was looking down at her hair while she put the foil on my palm, and I pretended she was one of my sisters. Then I felt sick and I stopped. I'm not on that poxy slave ship. I'm not a slave and Nyota Uhura is not a slave.

I thought she might want to fuck, though. She was already on her knees, after all. I didn't want her to cry this time, so I even said right away that I would reciprocate and I wouldn't use my mouth, just my fingers, and I wouldn't even lick her nipples if she didn't like my teeth that much. She... she just looked up at me and then got up to her feet and didn't say anything, just stepped back away from me. She stared at me for a bit, making deep breaths. It wasn't intimidating, but-- maybe I think that wasn't what Nyota Uhura was trying to do. I don't know.

Then she said in People speech, "Shaixor, I'm not being nice to you because I want to have sex."

And I said, "Oh." That was strange. And then I said, "But do you want to have sex anyway? There doesn't have to be a reason."

And she said, "No."

And I said-- pox, that stupid frustrating _human_. I don't understand _anything_ she does! I don't-- I said I'd do just about anything the way she wanted. I haven't been fucked in _weeks_ and I feel all horrible inside, tight and tense and-- _ugh_. I could scream. I could kick the walls and break things and _wail_ like a slattern in heat. I spend all day long with my lushness dripping wet like it's crying, and I-- I-- 

I hate this so much. I haven't felt like this since I was locked up on that slave ship. When-- 

When they wanted to make an example of somebody but there was nobody breaking the rules to single out, they would just pick somebody out. And they didn't want to damage the _merchandise_, so they... they just chained me up. In a little dark room for days and days until my belly was clawing itself for food and my lushness was so aching empty that my thighs just shook and shook and shook as the wet ran down them. 

I never screamed. Not... not because of the ache. I-- when they finally came to fuck me. Then I... I did. I screamed then. I-- I couldn't help it. If they had stopped, if they weren't happy with my response and they decided to stop and leave me again and-- so I screamed.  

But I haven't told Nyota Uhura that. She doesn't-- maybe humans don't feel like this. Maybe she doesn't feel like wanting to crawl on her belly and lift her ass and beg if she doesn't get fucked for weeks. But I do. And I'm used to her helping me and I need her to help me and she _wouldn't_. 

So then I said, "Why not?" 

She looked at me some more for a long time, until I was about to hiss at her and tell her to leave me alone, because I didn't feel like being around a woman trying to act like a sister and then not really being one at all. I didn't want her to see me being miserable and trembly. But then she said, "Shaixor, I don't usually want to have sex. Almost never. I don't like it." 

I told her-- gods all above. I nearly grovelled. I made promises like a cheap Fifth House slattern, not-- not like me. 

But then she said, "Because I was raped once. That's why. I still have problems with sex. I'm not doing this with you right now." 

And she left. 

If I ever-- I don't even _ know_ what-- _why_ I should feel like this, like breaking somebody's neck and beating the walls until my hands smash on them and... and... but I think if I ever find this male who did _repe_ on Nyota Uhura, I will kill him. I will kill him as though she was _People_. Like she was my sister, of my House. 

There's no reason I should. She hasn't done anything for me. She just left me with this wet empty pain and this strangling rage and I don't know what to _do _with any of it, but that's what I feel like. Only it's-- it's like she's all... tiny, and... and fragile. Some soft little thing you could break with one hand if you weren't careful, something somebody already broke. One _repe_\-- _one _and that's all it took to break her? _One _and some brain-fucked male ruined her for-- for years and years?

Nobody-- nobody should be allowed to do that to a woman. Not to a brilliant, beautiful woman like Nyota Uhura, not to-- I can't stand it. That somebody did this to her, hurt her like that, and now she's had all the joy taken out of fucking and she can't even-- she can't--

How can somebody break like that under just one? I don't understand! I should care more about getting her mouth on my lushness than getting to put my hand back on her face and make her eyes stop leaking, but I-- instead--

Fuck. Pox and rot and _drought_.

_Humans_.

*

Captain's log, Pike, Christopher. Stardate 2248.111. Oh-two fourteen hours.

We made the slip past the Blockade into Vulcan space without any trouble late last night. Early this morning, that is. I almost didn't think Mister Sulu's suggestion would work, but after the trouble we had last time, it was long past time to try something different. Just dodging through the holes doesn't work any more-- there aren't any. They've definitely developed some new kind of sensory technology on those picket ships. Times like this, when Vulcan's got money to throw away on state of the art tech for floating _cities_ that they just keep stationed _indefinitely_ on the borders of a goddamn _empire_, and then people are starving to death just half a light year away... makes me sick. God, the things that could be done if Vulcan would _help_... 

I need to stop doing logs at oh-two in the morning. I've just spent the last seventeen hours staring at the viewscreen, waiting for that picket ship to open fire on us, and my eyes aren't focusing right. But Sulu handled it excellently. It certainly raised my opinion of him as a pilot, I'll say that, not to mention as a tactician. 

Sulu had us drop out of warp behind what used to be Tarsus IV, which is almost within firing distance of the Blockade. Had Jim worked up, not that he said a thing. I need to commend him for that-- he'll bark, of course, but he needs to hear it. Once we pulled up behind Tarsus, the planet's atmospheric distortion blocked us from the Blockade's sensors. We cut all power, including the engines. Took Sulu three seconds and a one-quarter burst of impulse power to get us into the gravitational pull of the asteroid field around Tarsus. Sulu vented the ship's trash, and the force from that tiny release of atmosphere pushed us up against the face of an enormous asteroid. There was just _barely_ enough metal in the rock to lock the _ One_'s magnetic clamps onto. Then we just... spent seventeen hours drifting up to the Blockade until we finally slid right through it with all the rest of the cold rocks. I don't believe any other pilot that I've ever met could have done that, even _without_ a Vulcan picket ship sitting right beside us. 

Don't know what in hell possessed Vulcan to run the line of their border _through_ the asteroid belt of a planet, but I'm just glad they did. Maybe they were trying to use the field as a natural obstacle. Maybe they just didn't want to fuck up the perfect sphere of their goddamn Blockade. Either way-- their problem. Our gain. 

Nineteen days left to Betazed, if all goes as planned. At this point, I may not be kicking anybody off at all. McCoy's out of detox and Jim swears he's sober, not that McCoy seems at all happy about it. Jim oughta know-- he's spent almost all of his time glued to the man's side this last month. Uhura seems back to normal, if still not at ease, but then, she never was. I offered to let her off on Betazed when we get there, and she turned me down. We'll see. 

Shaixor's still on the block. Almost nobody's seen hide or hair of her since McCoy scarred her hand up. Spends most of her time in her cabin, alone. Jim says he can't draw her out. I've only spoken with her once, and frankly, she looks like a wreck. 

I asked if there was anything I could do. She asked if I would have sex with her. I said no and she walked away. 

I'll make sure she gets her citizenship on Betazed, but I can't say I won't put her off there. I'm running a ship, not a charity. I can't save the whole goddamn universe. Unlike Jim, I don't try. 

* 

_Dere_ Nyota Uhura. I hope my Standard pronunciation isn't horrible. I've seen on holovids that that's how humans start messages. I don't know any pig spee-- Standard. I don't know any Standard. I learned engineering from humans, but never Standard. I used to have a translator when I was-- before I escaped. 

I used to have to do these logs for Leonard H McCoy. The stupid male was trying to make some psychological profile of me. Then Christopher Pike said I didn't have to do them any more, and I got all the records back. I hid them all in my room. Locked up. I've never had anything that locked, before. I-- I should have destroyed them. All I had to do was throw them down the waste chute. But all these discs are expensive, I know that much, even if I can't figure out how to make the blasted things erase or replay. I'm sure you know how. You're familiar with this human technology. I just... I didn't want to waste them. I've never owned anything worth this much in my life. And I... I wanted to keep them. Just because. It was so _stupid_. Just because I had something to keep that was _mine_, and I _could_ keep it. That's all. 

Please don't stop listening to me talk. P-- please let me finish. Then throw out the disc if you want. I know Leonard H McCoy hated listening to my logs. 

This is... this is what I mean to say. Before Leonard H McCoy wrecked my hand, he-- he heard one of my logs where I... said some things. That maybe he should have told to Christopher Pike. And Christopher Pike would have killed me for them. But Leonard H McCoy didn't say anything. Then he got all sloppy drunk and mauled my hand and he wasn't allowed to do his stupid evaluation any more, so I got my logs back from him. He doesn't even have copies, Jim Kirk told me that. 

I hated doing logs for him, I really did. Sometimes when I said I didn't understand something, though, or I complained about it in a log, Leonard H McCoy would explain it to me. He's a stupid grain-sotted idiot, but it... sometimes it helped. And now I don't have anybody to do that for me, because you aren't talking to me, either. So there are things I don't understand. I _hate_ it, Nyota Uhura. I hate not understanding. 

...And I wondered if you might hate it, too. That you don't understand me. I wondered if-- if there might be a reason that Leonard H McCoy didn't tell Christopher Pike about me. Maybe because he heard my logs and he knew me and something about that... I don't know. But it was-- he-- 

What he did was like what a sister would do for me. A People woman. Nobody male, nobody _human_ has ever done that for me. 

Maybe I'm as stupid as I feel. Maybe you'll just report me to Christopher Pike and then I'll have to try to kill him and then I'll die. 

This is all of me, Nyota Uhura. So that you can understand. 

I-- 

I was born in a Third House based on a space station in the solar system of Orion Prime. I am half human. The House Mother decided that my mother should become impregnated by a human male, for the genetic variation. The exoticness of it. My father-- he was from Earth. I don't know his name, or my mother's. I understand this is... unusual for humans. It's quite normal for People. 

I was raised to be an infiltrator. It was what my House did. It was what the Syndicate gave us funding for. I grew up on a space station, on shuttles back and forth to planets and bases where I fucked and earned my money and left. 

No. I-- I did _repe_. I didn't fuck them. They didn't give _kinssent_ to me because I drugged them full of pheromones. I... did _repe_. On everybody, every human and Person and Andorian and Cardassian and Klingon I ever fucked. 

I'm not sorry, Nyota Uhura. But I want you to know that I would never do that to you. Not if-- it would make you cry, and that-- I can't stand that. It makes me want to break something when you cry. And if you didn't want me to do that to Christopher Pike, or Jim Kirk, or even Leonard H McCoy or anybody at all, I-- I wouldn't. If you said not to. 

Not that I can. Even if I wanted to. But I wouldn't. 

I was good at it. They called me a tower-breaker. I was beautiful and strong and powerful. I could seduce and fuck and kill anybody I pleased-- so I did. The Syndicate liked that. It made my House important. _I_ made my House important. They day we received a notice of elevation to First House rank, I became the most powerful woman in the solar system-- more powerful than my House Mother, even, because I was still working in the field and I could defy her orders if I wanted to, and there was nothing she could do about that as long as the Syndicate liked it. That day, my sisters lay me down in the round room, in front of every visitor and customer watching, and they kissed me and coddled me and pleasured me and each other for _ hours_. I think every male in the House must have left half sick on pheromones that day. 

The Syndicate started giving me long term assignments. Those are _hard_, Nyota Uhura. When your species found out that our women have pheromones that can control males, they spread it over the galaxy. The People used to depend on that secret to stay in business. They could sell a woman to alien owners as though she were a _slave_, and a year or two years later, she would have the aliens enslaved to _her_. But not now that the galaxy knows about it. Now nobody trusts a Person woman. 

As well they shouldn't. But it only made my job harder. I still succeeded. 

I infiltrated your planet, Nyota Uhura. I went to Earth with a delegation. I worked at an embassy, behind polite bars and negative-pressure vacuum sealed windows. I worked my way out of the embassy, too, then. I had to sneak, sneak, everywhere I went. Hide the back of my neck so that nobody would see I didn't have a node. Clutch my pheromones in for _days_ so that nobody would notice the smell. I slipped into slave-owning households and entrapped the owners-- ones that kept real slaves, I mean. Neutered People. 

Your species did this to us, do you know that? The People never really enslaved our own species before humans told everybody about us. Now we're forced to cut the pheromone glands out of our own women and sell them just to keep alive in this universe. Just to keep in business. It's hideous. 

I-- I never thought it sounded wrong to say that, before. It always seemed right to say that enslaving aliens was business but enslaving People was sick. But-- before. Before they did it to-- 

...I got into those poxy households. Snared the human owners. Did _repe_ on them. Made them my glitter-puppets. Got rid of the wives, if there were any. Usually there weren't. Strange, that males who wanted to own People slaves wouldn't even have a woman of their own species. But little by little I crept up in your society. And I did have to creep-- your stupid laws say it's illegal to own slaves even though so many humans do it. You all just _pretend_ otherwise. It's the stupidest thing I ever heard of. 

And then I made the jump. Into Starfleet, I mean. My original orders were to get at a government official. Instead, I got access to a Starfleet male-- Lieutenant Junior grade, fifty years old but barely influential at all. That's the point of your human government structure, though, isn't it? To keep males from advancing so that anybody we snare can never be of real use. Clever, I'll give you that. 

Pheromones don't work right away. I couldn't just slam him one day and have him forever. No. No, no. All I had was his name and the number of his office on the Academy campus. He was a teacher. That was all I needed. 

I snuck onto the campus in a garbage truck, and I slipped into the heating ducts of the building. I lived there, Nyota Uhura, for forty-two days. In the vents. Out of the sunlight, scrubbed by sonic vibrations until my skin went raw and dry and scabbed off. Leaking pheromones bit by bit into his office, small at first so that he wouldn't notice, then more and more. He started getting headaches when he stayed away from his office for too long. Started getting needy, desperate in the middle of the day. I waited and watched while he sat at his desk right below me, trying to sate his own lust and knowing he should be more professional, should be more controlled, shouldn't be doing that at work, shouldn't be doing that at all. He talked to himself. 

And then one day I came down. I was hideous. I had been creeping down at night to steal bits of food that he left in his office at the end of the day, so all the flesh on my body-- all the curves, the softnesses-- even my breasts-- it was all gone. I hadn't bathed in over a month. Every bit of skin on my body was ragged and flaking off, and my hair was knotted up from all the sonics trying to blast it right off my head. 

It didn't matter. I had already snared him. He was addicted, susceptible, suggestible-- and desperate to fuck. So was I. I pushed him down on the floor behind his desk and-- 

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Nyota Uhura. I'm-- I just-- That's what I did. I can't say otherwise. 

I made him bring me food. Soap and lotion and shawls and new clothing. Everything I needed, I had there in his office. No-- it was _my_ office. I gave the orders. He wrote what I wanted him to, did the things I told him to, showed me all the records he had the power to access. He taught me about engineering-- everything about machines and ships and calculations that he knew, I learned it, too. When he went out to a conference on the Mars colony, I made him buy a trunk to hide me in and bring me, too. When he went home at the end of the day, he came back early the next morning, gasping for me. 

I did my job. I did it very well-- better than anybody expected me to. Better than I expected to, or I wouldn't have been so _stupid_ about it. 

Because then there was nothing more I could do with him. He had. No. Power. No influence. No rank. He was going nowhere. I couldn't even move up to another male, some other officer in Starfleet-- there were no other males on campus. I sucked him dry and he stopped being useful. 

_I_... stopped being useful. 

Stupid. So _stupid_ of me! Poxy, rotten, _stupid_ whore-girl that I was, I didn't-- I didn't _think_! I never thought, never asked in all my life-- what does the Syndicate do with infiltration agents that can't infiltrate anything else? 

Nothing. There's no extraction plan. Actually, the opposite.  

They turned me in. The _Syndicate_ turned me in. My _People_. If I'd have known what was going to happen when I sent the report that there was nothing more I could do with the glitter-puppet, I-- I could have gotten off the campus, could have run. No-- I wouldn't have sent the poxy _report_. But I did. Two days later, Starfleet security came bursting into the office and ripped the vent out of the ceiling and then I was knocked out before I could get my teeth into even one person's neck. I woke up in a sealed, air-tight cell on a shuttle back to Orion Prime. 

Of course the Syndicate didn't say it was them when they reported me. They sent the tip anonymously. Then they asked the Earth government to pretty please extradite the lawbreaking terrorist radical back to Orion Prime for trial and imprisonment. Which is what always happens, I found out. Always. Hundreds and hundreds of women like me-- infiltrators, tower-breakers, women who worked their entire _lives_ for the scum-sucking whoreson _Syndicate_\-- and we n-never, ever find out what's going to be d-done to us until after it h-h-happens. 

And it-- what they do-- what they _d-did_\-- 

They-- they _neutered_ me. _Me_! They-- they _dared_ to-- 

G-gods all above. They t-took aw-w-way my-- my pheromones. They c-cut open my skill and ripped the gland out, _gods_. They drilled into my s-suh-_spine_ and attached the n-node into it and wired me like a _dog_ so that I could never run away. So that I would suh-scream and twitch and beg at the slightest t-touch of a button. They-- they cut out my ovaries, my w-w-_wombs_. All they left me was a _hole_, Nyota Uhura. A wet useless _h-h-hole_ in my body for m-m-males to fuck whenev-ver they p-pleased, just a _huh-h-hunh _ uh huh _huhn_... 

...A-and you know what? This should please you, N-nyota Uhura. It was your people who invented the nodes. A human female. All these millennia of s-slaving, literally thousands of years before your species even crawled from the _mud_, before Vulcans lifted themselves from their barren planet, before Andoria joined the stars, and the People never thought up anything as cruel as what just one of your species could do. When it was first created, the rot-blasted female scum dared to say her invention might help to defeat the threat of the Orion slavers. It might save Earth. 

The People just stole it from you, curled up so close in friendship that we were practically fucking your planet in the ass, and used it to better enslave the rest of the galaxy. 

And that-- that was the end of it. That is the way things are now. I... have nothing more to say.

This is all of me. Maybe you understand. I-- I find now that I have finished saying it all, there is really nothing of value in it. Any of it. All of my life. Is this me? Is this everything I thought I was? Important? _This_? Why did I... how could I never realise that? 

I don't care. I don't poxy care any more. If you or Christopher Pike want to kill me, you can do that. I don't know what I even thought this would do in the first place, making this log for you. I don't know what I was doing when I asked to stay and work on this ship. I don't-- I don't-- 

I'm not _anything_, Nyota Uhura. All I ever did was _repe_ and then be enslaved by my own People. _Years_ of that. And now I'm not doing either of those things. 

It's-- it's up to you. I belong to you now. You can do what you like. These logs, these secrets? They're all of me. It's yours. 

I never got to keep anything of my own before. I never got to choose who I belonged to, either. 

There. I win twice. That's enough for me. 

* 

Captain's log, Pike, Christopher. Stardate 2248.131. Fourteen fifty-seven hours. 

We've just cleared Betazed customs and been permitted access to planetary space. I've contacted the usual people in immigration, and officials are standing by in the hangar to meet Shaixor. 

Hell. I almost don't-- no, I _know_ I don't know how I'm saying this. 

I'm keeping her on. Pigs are flying in the snow on Vulcan, I'm sure. It's... I don't know what to say. Lieutenant Uhura's certainly not talking. Except to Shaixor, that is. Suddenly they spend every minute of the day together. Talking. Fighting like angry cats, half the time, that's for damn sure-- and then an hour later one of them goes and finds the other, looking like a beaten dog, and somebody bends and they're together again. I have _no_ clue. 

What I do have, however, is a communications officer that's starting to talk to people and a damned good engineer that's learning to get along with humans. That's something I can't afford to pass up right now. If I had the money-- or the luxury-- of picking a different crew... I'll be honest. I wouldn't let an Orion anywhere near the _Number One_'s manifest, let alone on the crew. But there's nothing I can do to change that right now, even if I know it's letting me in for a world of hurt in the future. We'll all just have to deal. 

Doctor McCoy's fifty days sober. I'm not stupid enough to think it'll last, though. But Jim sticks to his side like a limpet these days. Yesterday he wore McCoy's jacket onto the bridge. McCoy stalked in and took it back about an hour into shift, pissed as hell, of course. Jim laughed. Jim goddamn _laughed_. 

I haven't heard my son laugh in over a year. You're damn right I'm keeping that fucked up, aviophobic son of a bitch on this ship. 

...You must be getting old, Christopher. Time was, you never would've stood for this kind of shit. 'Course, time was, Winona would've kicked your ass for even thinking about it, but George's dead and Sam's gone and she left you a long time ago, so there you go. 

_Fuck_. Enough of this bitching. It doesn't buy pity, let alone new dilithium crystals. At least you lived to get older than George, and you got Jim. 

You got Jim. Just... just keep him in one piece, now. Get him through his. Get him better. 

God, let him get better. 

* 

Today I--  

Is this right? This is-- you want me to say this? You can say it, if you want to. 

If that's what you want, Nyota Uhura. I'm-- I'm sorry. Uhura. Just one name, I remember. 

Today I became a citizen of Betazed. I have a birth certificate and an identification card and a great deal of pointless serial numbers that say I am who I am not actually. But it is legal. It seems a bit stupid to me, that a planet should have so many laws and rules making sure that all of its people are accounted for and tracked everywhere, but then the planet's own _government_ turns around and breaks all of those laws and lies to _itself_. But that is the reason why I'm a free person, now. I think maybe I shouldn't complain. 

Even if it is stupid. 

I had to pick a new name. The government male-- man-- said I couldn't keep the name the Syndicate knows me by, in case I'm ever caught by the Vulcan government, because then the Union could identify me and I'd be shipped back there. But even something as flimsy as a new name is enough that Betazed could get me away from Vulcan, if that happened. 

And they... they would do that. This _planet_ that isn't mine, these people who aren't People-- they would come in and-- and _rescue_ me. 

Nobody is allowed to call me Shaixor, now. I didn't have very much time to think of a new one, but I picked one that even Leonard H McCoy can pronounce. Now the drunk idiot has no excuse to say it wrong. I picked Gaila. 

Gaila. _Gaiiila_. 

It sounds like Nyota and Uhura. Gaila. Like that. 

Here. No. You can have it back. I don't want to say anything else. 

Yes. I'm sure. 

Uhura? 

I... Thank you.

*

**Content deleted. Recording edited at 22.37 on 2248.131. **

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